Monday, July 1, 2013

80 Acre Hoppy Wheat Clone

About a week ago I came across Boulevard Brewing's 80 Acre Wheat beer. I immediately fell in love with it. I am not a big fan of wheat beers, but this one just tasted great to me. With a heat wave in full effect, the desire to brew something similar was high. I checked out some different threads as well as Boulevards website to come up with a clone recipe. It helps that Boulevard is pretty open about the beers ingredients.

It is a pretty simple recipe. There is only one small bittering addition. I used CTZ, but it really doesn't matter what is used as long as you get something like 12-16 IBUs (Boulevard lists this as a 20 IBU beer). All of the rest of the hops, and there are a ton, come at flame out or later.

The calculations below come from Beersmith. In my opinion that program doesn't handle flame-out hop additions well. I guarantee that you are going to pick up some IBUs from a large flame-out addition like the one below.

At flame out we added close to 14 oz of Cascade hops and let things stand for 15 minutes. When we started chilling the temp was 190.

The finishing touch to this beer will be a half pound more of Cascade and a half pound of Nelson Sauvin as dry hops. It will give this beer the aroma of a fine IPA, but will come off more or less like a slightly hoppy and quite citrusy wheat beer.

80 Acre Clone (Hoppy Wheat)
American Wheat or Rye Beer
Type: All GrainDate: 6/30/2013
Batch Size (fermenter): 20.00 galBrewer: Michael & Tim
Boil Size: 23.59 galAsst Brewer:
Boil Time: 70 minEquipment: Stainless Pots (26 gallons) -BCS 460 
End of Boil Volume 21.00 galBrewhouse Efficiency: 72.00 %
Final Bottling Volume: 20 galEst Mash Efficiency 75.6 %
Fermentation: Ale, Single StageTaste Rating(out of 50):
Taste Notes:
Ingredients
Ingredients
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
24 lbs 10.4 ozPale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM)Grain162.2 %
8 lbsWheat Malt, Ger (2.0 SRM)Grain220.2 %
7 lbsWheat, Flaked (1.6 SRM)Grain317.7 %
1.25 ozColumbus (Tomahawk) [14.00 %] - Boil 60.0 minHop416.3 IBUs
13.80 ozCascade [5.50 %] - Aroma Steep 15.0 minHop50.0 IBUs
4.0 pkgSafAle English Ale (DCL/Fermentis #S-04) [23.66 ml]Yeast6-
8.00 ozCascade [5.50 %] - Dry Hop 7.0 DaysHop70.0 IBUs
8.00 ozNelson Sauvin [12.00 %] - Dry Hop 7.0 Days
Mash Profile

Mash Steps
Name Description Step Temperature Step Time
SaccharificationAdd 13.39 gal of water at 163.9 F153.0 F60 min
Sparge Step: Batch sparge with 2 steps (Drain mash tun, , 15.96gal) of 168.0 F water

UPDATE
7/10 -This beer has been in the fermenter for 10 days at a constant temp of 67. I did not check the gravity, but I am sure that fermentation is complete. I added a whole pound of hops to the fermenter today. 8 oz of Cascade and 8 Nelson Sauvin. I plan on letting it go 4-5 days before kegging.

7/14 - Kegged this one today. Tasted and looked a lot like grapefruit juice. I will give it a week of keg conditionaing before tasting again.

4 comments:

  1. Hey Guys,

    I was going to try to replicate your recipe tomorrow or Friday. Any info on how the finished product turned out? Thanks for any advice/feedback. I'm most likely going to be cutting it down to a 5gal batch.

    Cheers,
    Eric Woelker

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Eric, I apologize I missed your question. I guess you have already brewed this beer by now. I am curious to hear how it went.

    If I had to make a change, it would be to make a much smaller aroma addition of cascade. It took quite a while to mellow out. I would probably cut it in half! I ended up sitting on it longer than I wanted in order to get that cascade to mellow out. Once that happened it went pretty quick.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hey Micheal, I just had my first 80 acre tonight, and fell in love. Like you I am not always a big fan of wheat beers, but this one is right in my wheelhouse. I am new to all grain brewing, and want a clarification on what you would do to this recipe. Should I cut the Cascade to around 7 ounces then?

    ReplyDelete
  4. The Cascade does need to be reduced at flameout. Looking back at my notes I see I got a little heavy handed with the cascade.I originally planned on adding 10 oz at flameout, but at the last minute just went ahead and added everything I had (13.8 oz).

    Note that the recipe in the post is a 20 gallon batch. So for a five gallon batch I should have added 2.5, but added 3.5 instead. It doesn't sound like much but that is a 40% increase.

    So if I scale this to 5.5 gallons, this is what it would look like:

    Pale Malt - 6.5 lbs
    German Wheat - 2.25 lbs
    Flaked Wheat 2 lbs

    Hops
    60 minute addition at ~15 IBUS (could be any bittering hop)
    2.5 oz Cascade @ flameout, let it steep 15 mins before cooling

    Yeast - S-04

    Dry Hop (7 days)
    2.5 oz cascade
    2 oz Nelson Sauvin

    Good luck, I hope it turns out great!

    ReplyDelete

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